Bible Trivia on Xbox

Pam and I have a few games we play together.  Most of them are on the Wii, but this is the one and only game I can get her to play on XBox.  It has really tough old testament trivia with cool mini-games and an awesome christian soundtrack.  Think some Toby Mac while running through the parting of the Red Sea or some Chris Tomlin while being chased by lions.  We've been known to have a marathon session of this and both have our favorite games.  There's also a "zonk" in each round called the "wrath of God" that makes you lose all your points from that round.  We suck at the trivia, but some of it is really about some really obscure characters in the Old Testament.  I got this game years ago at Best Buy for $5 and was the best entertainment expense I think i ever spent.  Hope they come out with more games like this!

Science and God

I've become a fan of Neil Degrasse Tyson recently.  He has an uncanny ability to take difficult scientific topics and distill them down so that anyone can understand them.  He reminds me of a scientific version of Andy Stanley, well except for the fact that he's an outspoken atheist.  He gave a talk called, "The Perimeter of Ignorance" at a conference that I listened to the other day that really got my wheels spinning (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTFwDpr14Bo).  In that conference he mourned that more scientists we're atheists because he saw faith as a hindrance to scientific discovery.  He pointed to prominent example after prominent example from Newton to Einstein where scientists reached a scientific roadblock they couldn't figure something out and they essentially just gave-up, called it miraculous and said it must be God, only to have a future scientist be able to explain the previously explainable.  He said they "basked in the majesty of God" only have their discovery stop and he wondered how much more a Newton or Einstein could have contributed without having the "parachute" of a God hypothesis.

I guess this is my frustration sometimes with science and church.  I believe God and science can coexist and can actually have a synergistic relationship.  What I don't like is when people look at a tough problem and don't even try to solve it because it appears too hard and just fall back on the miraculous.  I believe there are miracles, but I also believe God setup a systems of natural laws, many of which he is eagerly awaiting for us to discover.  In ancient times people got sick from evil spirits, but we now understand germs.  We also now understand gravity, the atom and hundreds of other former mysteries.  I think it's a shame when people use faith as an improper justification of ignorance for themselves or their children.  It's almost like there's a fear that science will minimize God, but what I see is quite the opposite.  All you have to do is look at something like Hubble or the fact that scientist have discovered more stars than there are grains of sand in all the deserts and beaches to see that science can enhance God's majesty, not diminish it!  I think he smiled when we saw these images for the 1st time and probably is saying, "I can't wait until NASA gets more funding and they build a bigger one, it'll blow their mind!"



Neil DeGrasse Tyson did share one quote from Galileo that I love, “The Bible was written to show us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.”  I couldn't agree more.  Let's believe in God, but let's also use the intelligence he's given us for the most good possible.

Extra Mayo

So today and tomorrow my dad is at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.  They're essentially doing assembly line medicine with my dad spending an hour or two with a list of docs and tests all looking at his case from a different perspective.  It's a bit of a mystery as to why his platelet and red blood cell count hasn't come up yet combined with his blood clot issues along what chemo drugs to look at next since he didn't respond well to this one.  One school of thought with counts this low is to essentially "wait it out" and just use transfusions to bridge the gap.  The trip to Mayo is somewhat of a double check to be sure they're not missing anything else that could be causing it other than his bone marrow being slow to recover.

Tomorrow Pam and I fly to Wisconsin for a nice visit and to support my dad for the FVBTC walk (details below).  It will be great to see my parents and my sister and brother-in-law.  My dad is still all there mentally and loves talking Packers and playing cards, so I'm looking forward to an enjoyable visit.  Keep my dad and the Mayo Clinic doctors in your prayers so that they can find anything there is to be found and that my dad gets the best advice as to how to move forward.

From previous post: On Saturday I'll be running for a different reason up in Wisconsin.  The Fox Valley Brain Tumor Coalition (FVBTC) will be holding their annual race.  The race benefits their work to support the patients of brain tumors and their caregivers.  It's a really cool race in that the patients themselves are encouraged to participate!  Some may only make it 50 feet and others just a step or two, but that's not the point, it's all about support and encouragement for what can be a very depressing disease.  My dad's goal is to make one lap, about a half mile.  I have no clue how far I'll go, but all that matters to me is being there to support my dad.  If you're interested in learning more about the great work of the FVBTC or donating, my dad has setup a race page below:

http://www.fvbtc.org/participant/home.php?pid=137

Government Debt

So one of the huge issues for me in politics is the debt.  I see it as robbing from future generations in order to live beyond our means in the present.  Not only that, it's against Christian values as you can read in so many Bible verses.  In fact many people don't know that the Bible talks about money that almost any other topic!

I was really impacted by Andy Stanley's Recovery Road series.  You can watch/listen to the great messages from it at http://recoveryroad.org/.  In the series Andy encouraged us to let our faith determine what we support politically and be sure what/who we support is aligned with Biblical principles.  It was amazing how much the Bible had to say about today's problems as things weren't much different back then as the quote shows below:

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public
debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered
and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed
lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of
living on public assistance." Cicero , 55 BC

Things didn't end well for Cicero.  According to Plutarch, a Roman Centurian slew him, then cut off his head. On Marc Antony's instructions his hands were cut off as well; these were nailed and displayed along with his head in the Forum. Antony's wife Fulvia took Cicero's head, pulled out his tongue, and jabbed it repeatedly with her hairpin in final revenge against Cicero's power of speech.  Guess some things never change, people never want to hear the difficult truth, even if it leads to the downfall of their society like the Romans.

I was really impacted by the graph below.  Some people say things like "cut welfare" or "tax this group or that group", but you can see by the charts below that if you cut EVERYTHING other than defense, medicare and social security we're still way in the hole.  Also, if you DOUBLE the amount of taxes everyone pays we're still in the red.  It let me know just how dire things were.

So I guess this year I hope the public will be realistic.  If someone promises you lower taxes AND higher spending, no matter the party, beware.  Let's be good Christians and good stewards for both our benefit and future generations.

Learn more about 

us debt.

Running for a good cause

So on Saturday I ran the Roswell 13.1 "alien themed" half marathon.  I missed a critical component of the marathon experience however.......training.  I hadn't run in about 4 weeks with the wedding and honeymoon. It was rough, but I survived.

On September 8th I'll be running for a different reason up in Wisconsin.  The Fox Valley Brain Tumor Coalition (FVBTC) will be holding their annual race.  The race benefits their work to support the patients of brain tumors and their caregivers.  It's a really cool race in that the patients themselves are encouraged to participate!  Some may only make it 50 feet and others just a step or two, but that's not the point, it's all about support and encouragement for what can be a very depressing disease.  My dad's goal is to make one lap, about a half mile.  I have no clue how far I'll go, but all that matters to me is being there to support my dad.  If you're interested in learning more about the great work of the FVBTC or donating, my dad has setup a race page below:

http://www.fvbtc.org/participant/home.php?pid=137

Dad at home!

Dad is improving and is now home! Hope to restart more aggressive tumor treatment (almost forgot about that part) this week. In other news Port Douglas Australia is beautiful! Awesome honeymoon trip.

Good news on Dad

Hi from Sydney! Awesome day yesterday at opera house and zoo! What's more awesome is that dad's white blood cell count is up to 1.3 and he should go home tomorrow and start Cyberknife treatment next week. Although we're already having an awesome time, this lifts some weight and let's us enjoy ourselves just a bit more down here. Well at a McDonalds on free wifi in Sydney on my iPhone, time to go back to being a tourist, but wanted to share the good news!